IV
Stress Beaters.
she screamed at the top of her lungs. When she used the words 'violated' and 'destroyed' they were carefully chosen and therefore carried a huge punch. The next patient was a man who had insisted on seeing me as an emergency and who turned out to be 'gutted beyond all belief that he had a mild cold. He left the room saying his wife would be equally 'shocked' by the news, and it took me a few seconds to realize he was not joking. It is not difficult to guess who had my sympathy that day.
We live in a media-driven world where bigger and better hype is needed to stimulate jaded palates. Losing a football match is not 'a disaster', but losing a football team in an air crash is. Having a young son ask for an expensive pair of training shoes is not 'a tragedy', but it becomes one when he is blown up by terrorists when shopping for them. The more we moderate what we say, the greater the impact when we use forceful language. Remind yourself of this daily and gain the benefit as a result.
Avoid exaggerated language and choose your words carefully. A flat tyre is not 'a disaster9 — your loved one being run over is. Then, if you do choose to use strong or dramatic language, people will sit up and take notice.

Have your cake and eat it
I once had the bright idea of trying to count up all the published diets in the world and turn them into The Henderson Super Diet, make a fortune and retire. This never got off the ground once I realized there were some 300,000 published diets, and that is an underestimate. Whatever problems I see with patients every day I can guarantee there will always be someone asking for a pill to make them thin. This is sometimes understandable in obese people, but more often than not it is a person who is not overweight. They simply want to be thinner, because that's what they believe society expects. Our basic body shape is determined at birth, and we are all one of three types: mesomorphs, ectomorphs and endomorphs. Mesomorphs are muscular, ectomorphs are thin and often tall, and endomorphs are rounded with a high fat level. The one thing that diet books will never tell you is - and this is the only thing you will ever need to know about dieting - it is impossible to change your body type no matter what you do. This does not mean you should not try to keep your weight at a reasonable level, since the health risks of obesity are well known. Instead, accept you may never be a size 10 or look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and try to make the best of what you have. A starved fat person is exactly that, and not a thin person. If you spend your life concentrating on your weight and trying different diets, not only may you be genetically programmed to fail, but you are not concentrating on other, more important things in life. There is an unhealthy obsession with calories, and the only point I ever make to 'calorie-counters' is taste them, don't waste them.
The vast majority of obese people I see compound whatever their basic body shape is by eating too much — it's as simple as that. Added to that we have the following facts:

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